I'm on "vacation" this week and have been making use of the time working on boat projects. First up (because I thought it would be an easy win) I lined the hanging locker in my cabin with cedar panels. It turned out not to be that easy as it was difficult to get in there to work. I estimated it to be a 2 hour job and ended up spending parts of 2 days. However, the end result is good and I no longer see the vented loops for the waste hoses lurking behind my clothes- and it now has a nice pleasant cedar smell, instead of .....

Next up was to tackle the head (bathroom). One of the lovely beige Formica walls was made even uglier due to mildew and rot where it met the floor. Had to take a few pry bars after it and ended up removing two layers of ugly beige Formica (guess it had happened before and they just covered it up). I thought that was the terrible part until I was left to deal with the contact cement residue. I had to put on a respirator and goggles which made me sound like Darth Vader. Spent a lot of time in there with MEK, paper towels and scraper before I decided it just wouldn't work. I'd be there the rest of my life with that approach, plus I could only do it for 10 minutes at a time - as that respirator and my claustrophobia are not a good combination. I was fighting off panic attacks the whole time.

Next approach was to sand it off. So yesterday DJ loaned me a little hand sander and I worked on it while he took Coleen Christmas shopping. I thought I did a pretty good job -- until he got back and inspected. He started laughing and said "Well you got it smooth, but you didn't take off the contact cement". Turns out I had the wrong kind of SAND PAPER! Who knew there were different kinds! So now I got the heavy duty sander and some rougher sand paper and spent about 3 hours torturing myself and the wall until it was just like new wood. (Actually, I'll digress by saying that I would have preferred to just put up new wood, instead of all that sanding, but my supervisor - DJ, thought it a bad idea, and encouraged me to fix it the right way). Anyway, just as I was about to give a victory cheer I turned and got a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I nearly burst into tears! My hair and scalp was covered in sawdust and I mean covered thick! Now this might not sound too bad - but let's recall I was working on the SHOWER STALL!

I had no choice but to fire up the stove, heat water, fill the solar shower bag, and rig up a shower outside in the cockpit. The wind was blowing and it was about 55 degrees, not exactly great conditions for a shampoo! While the water was heating I started cleaning up sawdust that was on nearly everything in the cabin. (Note to self - cover things up with sheets next time!). Anyway, I had a very quick shower, then made a cup of hot cocoa with lots of Peppermint Schnapps and crawled into bed.

Today I'm taking a break from all of that --- and doing a little Christmas baking... as well as washing down every single thing in the main cabin.

Finally, a few pictures of our new boat/home and it's even decorated for Christmas :-) First two pictures are the main cabin the the last picture is my kitchen (galley). Busy, busy week, will post more on the weekend.

So last night I finally had time to sort out the cockpit lockers on our new boat (which we affectionately call our garage). This boat has two lockers which is twice as many as we had before. The locker on the starboard side is big enough to stand in, but it also has the refrigerator motor, 6 batteries, watermaker, fresh water pump and hot water tank. There are so many lines and wires running around it's a jungle in there!

First I pulled out 5 big life jackets, two of which are really nice offshore jackets with strobes, decided to keep those. There was also this huge bag with something rusty and metal but a bunch of fabric stuck to it. I put that on deck in the toss out pile (but more on that bad decision later).

I spent a few minutes down there cleaning up and trying my best to identify all the bits and pieces. I tell you when I finally do have it all figured out, it will all be labeled AND I'll have a nice little drawing explaining it all. I'll definitely need that as my memory starts to go :-) I managed to figure out quite a bit, but the rest will require DJ's help.

The aft locker is also huge (by comparison to the Glass Slipper) and managed to swallow up nearly everything we had in our old cockpit locker and still have room left over! But there is a little, serious design flaw I need to fix before we head out.... The little wheel that has the cable for the steering mechanism is totally exposed, which means you really shouldn't set anything on it or around it that could cause it to get jammed - as you'd risk having no steering. That pretty much excludes using the locker.... So I've now got a new project on my list to build a little box around it. Given my new woodworking skills - that shouldn't take more than a day or two :-)

Well, anyway back to my cool surprise.... so when DJ got home last night he inspected my bag of rusty pipes. He insisted on pulling the whole thing out of the bag, cutting off the fabric that was stuck to it... Turns out it was the emergency tiller! I'm telling you I hope I never have an emergency that would cause me to use that thing! DJ says with some sanding and some kind of paint it will be fine. (another project to add to the list!) So glad he looked before I tossed in it the garbage bin!

So I woke up in the middle of the night thinking.... then what is in that long blue bag that I thought was the emergency tiller and so carefully stored in an easily accessible spot. It's definitely some kind of metal pipes... what could it be.... and the I shot upright! It's one of those nifty things you use to lift the motor off the dinghy! A total $600 dream come true!!! No I was too lazy to get up in the night and dig it out, but first thing this morning I was up digging it out. Soon I was dancing a jig in cockpit as it really is a hoist for the dinghy motor! Of course then Coleen, ever the wise, said "Well, mom, you knew there had to be one, a woman owned this boat, how do you think she did it?"

I tell you that girl is learning a thing or two about cruising. We were talking yesterday about where to store our folding bikes. I had hoped to store them in that huge starboard locker, but it was looking doubtful. Coleen said we should put them under the dinghy when it's lashed on deck for passages. Then she followed up by saying, but we get to the anchorage, we'll have to bring them inside whenever we leave the boat, so they don't get stolen.

Anyway, we are having a lot fun discovering hidden treasure on our new boat. So far no bad surprises. Today, we have a long list of errands onshore. I'll admit I haven't been to shore since.. ok I can't remember - i think last Sunday!

Top on the list of errands is some shoes for the Captain. I'm down to one pair of sandals and a pair of dress boots for work. Can you imagine a woman with no shoes? Any way got to get some sneakers... I had my first injury of the adventure yesterday. It had been a chilly morning, so I was running around in wool socks, stepped down off the cockpit seat, with my hands full and slammed into the battery charger. Nearly took off my big toe! Anyway I can't run around town with that thing in sandals - grossing everyone out. Got to break down and buy shoes :-)

Wow. The past few days have been fun but exhausting. First I took the family on a whirlwind trip to NYC over Thanksgiving. Phillip took the train down from Providence to meet us, and my very best friend of over 30 years flew in from CA. We stayed at the New York Hilton - living large. It was a jam packed few days, with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, Phantom of the Opera, Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectaular (with the Rockettes), a Michael Bublee concert, the Guggenhiem Museum, lots of sightseeing, and Mary Poppins (again). Not exactly a relaxing vacation, but fun nonetheless. Best of all it was time with my favorite people!

Coleen and I were laughing as we flew home first class (via free upgrade). We'd spent several days in the lap of luxury, fancy hotels, cabs to everywhere, amazing restaurants... and were returning to our new boat home with a malfunctioning toilet and broken shower, far away from any hustle, bustle or noise. Still we were just as excited as we'd been about our trip to NYC. Yes, our new home needs a bit of work, but she has great potential. Nothing that a little elbow grease and a lot of bucks won't fix :-)

Since our return I've built shelves in Coleen's cabin (v-berth) which was no easy feat given the curve of the hull. They actually turned out really nice, but only because my supervisor (DJ) kept making me re-do things :-) I also built shelves in her closet (which we boaties call a locker). And to top it all off, I put pink felt fabric on the walls... yes it's a bit garish, but I did promise her that when we got a new boat she could have a pink walls - just like her room in our former house. Hey it's just glued on and we can change it easily when she gets older :-) I still need to replace the headliner - which will be white - no way was I making that pink!

Over the weekend we replaced the head with a fancy new Lavac toilet and all the plumbing too. That set me back a few bucks, but will be well worth it. Yesterday I replaced the shower sump, and finally had the first inside shower on our new boat!!! I still need to paint in the head and do something about replacing the sink counter top which is beyond ugly. I walked around in Home Depot Sunday, but came up short.

Best of all we are actually making plans to continue our journey! I should have all the boat projects completed and be ready to head to the Bahamas by end of January unless we run into some real budget buster in the re-fit! We still need to sort out the charging/electrical system, add two sails & replace the standing rigging, a bottom job complete with new thru hulls - and that's just the big stuff.... lucky for me I like boat projects..